Interestingly, I have discovered my second draft while mercilessly hacking up my first

When I am writing a first draft, I have a very strict Re-Read Nothing policy. This applies to fiction as well as blog posts and emails. Just get it all down, that's my philosophy and then re-read later. I adopted this because, otherwise, I get all caught up in rewriting while I work and it makes the slog to the end much harder.

That said, some of my first drafts come out surprisingly well. But, of course, not all of them do.

There is this most exciting Young Adult Novel Contest going on. You...